“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.

And a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you Paul. I think you do an excellent job of getting into the details of what you comment on and providing the appropriate references. I would wish some of the warmest provided more data with references but that is not to be as it would raise questions as to the validity of what they are claiming. I do wonder why your message is not spread further. I periodically read Jeff Masters’ blog at wunderground.com when the topic is global warming and am more than alarmed at how little many of those folks know on a global basis, information contrary to their beliefs and their sometimes rude bias. Masters is also gung ho climate change alarmist – good writer but relies heavily on local deviations from average and circumstantial evidence. One of these days I plan to ask on his blog if they are aware of you and your and others work and see what comes of it.

An interesting area of weather, distinct from climate, but very much related is modeling. I have a lot of management level knowledge of what it takes to model and know that what folks model weather wise can be way off the mark. Again, on Masters’ site, he shows a lot of details on hurricanes including modeling results. Every model at times is totally different in predicting the hurricanes path, some times even over a one day period. Predicted paths can and often are 180 or more degrees apart for a 3-5 day prediction. If they have inabilities over short periods of time why do they think that a 1 to 100 year prediction is any good especially if they do not know all, and I mean all, the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere coupled with the models being simple linear extrapolations from the present. My experience in working with top notch government and industry scientists trying to model a relatively simple product, but non linear in many respects, has convinced me that contrary to the ability to model a structure with materials with very well known properties and interactions, modeling anything where you know only part of the story leads to the proverbial garbage in, garbage out.

Frank;
Keep reminding the ‘crats that while to err is human, it takes a computer to really screw up. That this can be used to advantage, as logic errors and data holes rigourously reveal themselves in a model, instead of being glossed over by human “analysts” precommitted to a particular outcome.